Based on my cursory knowledge of him, Don Quixote was driven by his sense of justice, and his goal to bring about chivalry. He also recruited a farmer who became his squire, named Sancho Panza. But this where the parallel ends, as it says in the Wikipedia entry, Don Quixote was inspired to go on knightly adventures after becoming fascinated with chivalric romances; Reading these books made Don -- who was middle-aged at this time -- delusional, and distorted his mental faculties. In Suikodens I and II, Maximillian's army was already disbanded -- leaving only him and Sancho -- yet he was still his spry and determined self. Can anyone who has already read the books, expound on the similarities and the differences between Don Quixote and Maximillian.

Obviously the name Sancho is a reference. There are not a lot of similarities, other than enthusiasm and possibly a somewhat romantic view of war. Max and Sancho in the games aren't really developed well enough to draw many more parallels. The biggest difference is that Don Quixote was an addled old loon. The book is where the phrase "tilting at windmills" comes from. Quixote tried to joust with them, as he believed they were giants. Max in Suikoden is clearly not that far gone, and is still a competent warrior so far as we can tell. Sancho in the book was something of a voice of reason, but mainly went along with Quixote's delusions out of respect and complacency. The voice of reason aspect is something of a parallel, since Sancho in the game is seen reining in Max's enthusiasm on at least one occasion that I can recall. The game version doesn't seem to be the sort of enabler seen in the book, but as Max seems to have all his faculties, it's hard to say if that's a difference, or if Sancho in the game just hasn't been tested in that way.

I'm pretty sure Murayama or somebody from Konami has said outright that Max and Sancho are based on Quixote and Panza, but I can't recall a reference offhand.

Edit: When you say "books" are you referring to the manga's or novelizations of Suikoden and Suikoden II? I don't think Max or Sancho was developed much more in those, but he might have had a little development in the first Gaiden. You'll have to wait for somebody else on that, though.

Edit: When you say "books" are you referring to the manga's or novelizations of Suikoden and Suikoden II? I don't think Max or Sancho was developed much more in those, but he might have had a little development in the first Gaiden. You'll have to wait for somebody else on that, though.

Rather than based on, I would either say inspired by or a reference to.

Many Suikoden characters nods at real people or extremely famous fictional characters in order to introduce them to the player with the minimum of plot exposition. With 108 playable characters and more non playable ones, you cannot afford a huge back-story for each. Which, incidentally, spares us the usual cliches in favour of well proven archetypes. At least they do not pretend to reinvent the wheel.

I think Max and Sancho bears many traits of Don Quixote so that you get the idea pretty quickly that Max is an eccentric and overexcited old warrior and Sancho will follow him anywhere with unbreakable faith, all without having to explain it.

BrucePrintscreen wrote:Rather than based on, I would either say inspired by or a reference to.

OK, I'll bite. How does this sliding scale work? It seems like "based on" is a step to far for you here, but you say yourself that the similarities are so extensive that Max and Sancho are instantly recognizable if you know the characters from Quixote, so does Max have to wander around singing "Dulcinea" at the top of his voice to pass the threshold?

Pyriel pretty much answered my question when I created this thread and wondered if Maximillian's personality and backstory paralleled Don Quixote's. I would be greatly disappointed if any of the characters in the series were created by using the cookie-cutter method of directly ripping off of someone's work or from history, and just changing their names. I understand the difficulty of designing over a hundred characters under certain time restraints, so I give the series a pass when they use real or fictional people as templates for their characters. Whether it's a nod, ode, or reference, let's not quibble with semantics and let the subsequent posts escalate into a potentially heated debate over words.

They mean pretty much the same thing, it's just that "based on" is not as specific as the other terms, and often gets interpreted as "directly based on", like how the Lord of the Rings movies are directly based on the Lord of the Rings novels - the characters are not just inspired by Gandalf and Frodo and Aragorn, they are supposed to be Gandalf and Frodo and Aragorn.

If you say "loosely based on" then that's implying that it's not recreating the original material, it just contains light references to it. Like how the 108 stars concept is loosely based on what occurs in the Water Margin novel.

I thought Pyriel and sticky is the same guy because you two always help me extend my English vocabulary by using words I haven’t heard before *adding “snide” and “complacency” to the vocabulary list*. Thanks guy(s)!